Live with James O'Keefe! | Interviews

how's it going everyone my name is Will wit with Prager University today we are joined by James O'Keefe from project Veritas James is on the front lines of exposing bias in the media all over with tech companies he's doing amazing work are you doing today James hey great to be with you thanks for having me yeah no of course so we saw the video of you exposing Twitter silencing conservative views could you explain to our audience what that's all about well we released three videos the first showed Twitter engineer a senior network security engineer said they're sharing Trump's private direct messages with the Department of Justice and this guy's name is Chloe Haines he'd go on to say they have hundreds of engineers who look at pictures of your private parts and it's amazing he said there's hundreds of Engineers and Twitter who log in and voyeuristic look at your private messages the biggest video we released was about shadow banning something that I think your audience know about but we never had any confirmation as you know they talked about the algorithms that Twitter uses to go through your tweets if you're tweeting about the American flag about God about the Christian cross about these types of things they consider you to be a Russian bot and they mute you on your timeline so that people don't know that you're being seen so all these engineers are talking about the targeting of conservatives on their platform and Twitter has reacted they said that they they don't do this even though all the wrench and ears on to saying it and this week Twitter their chief operations officer has resigned had Twitter saw that that whole story is insane that they actually do this we actually Prager you our Twitter just got hacked by a Turkish cyber army group we couldn't get our account back for 12 hours and Twitter still hasn't talked to us about why that happened or why we lost our D verified badge you have any insight on that maybe I can tell you that's the same thing has happened to Sara Carter and I also got a note from sheriff Clark yeah they were targeting conservative pages it's Jens landing you know listen it's very hard to shame people in Silicon Valley it's like they're tapping themselves on the back they're proud of what they do it's truly incredible III these videos are on became an internet phenomenon and BuzzFeed and TechCrunch reach out to Twitter and got a statement and they vehemently denied everything they're caught on tape saying and doing so I'm not verified on Twitter I have 400,000 followers and I don't have a blue check mark verification so I think it's just you got to put pressure on them I got up a pressure on the CEO I think they are taking a branding hit but the problem is actually yesterday congressman Schiff and Dianne Feinstein of California put out a letter saying that all of the people who are tweeting hashtag released the memo they're saying that they are Russian Fox which is of course Posterous know the hidden camera tape for a knife sing the engineer quite literally says who to talks about the American flag and guns and God who who taught you must be a Russian bot if you speak that way so the people of Silicon Valley are living in such a bubble that they actually believe that the people who vote for Donald Trump are ergo Russian boxes it's extraordinary to watch that's insane conservatives are Russian box now that's what they're saying how do you how do you think that these big tech companies you know YouTube Google Facebook Twitter how do they get away with this how do they get away with silencing conservative voices well there it seems as though right now we're watching the cracks form and the dam that the dense and the fortress because it seems like as the awareness is rising and you see it online if you utilize Twitter you see the release the memo and all these it's sort of crescendoing but the problem is is that these a lot of these engineers are foreign-born workers they're on h-1b visas they don't believe in the same I guess fundamental values that the first amendment for freedom of conscience a redress of grievances they don't agree with the fundamental principles that we believe in and they live in an echo chamber they live in a group think one engineer or boat or I was it was it was a Twitter engineer he says that it's not so much a written policy at Twitter it's an unwritten code a groupthink is how he describes it that's how I've heard a lot of people describe this they get away with it up until now up until now and this might be a turning point in the culture wars as we the people start to understand their algorithms and how they and how they shadows and users yeah what are you doing great work so what do you see next then for project Veritas coming up in the future after this whole Twitter thing well I think we're going after people who buy ink by the barrel we're going after the really important organizations CNN The New York Times The Washington Post Twitter big tech companies we're going after the sacred cows we're going after the organizations that no one else has the willpower or the ability to do we think the media is more powerful than all branches of government I think that's become clear I think a CNN I I hate to admit it but they still have a large degree of power and their ability to shame people humiliate people control the narrative about immigration so it's important for us to investigate these companies directly and they view me as a threat they think that I'm a problem but I'm just doing the things that they use to do so Project Veritas is sort of a modern and not breaking Renaissance this book American prophet is all about what is required to do the work I mean we've been jailed we've been detained at the border we've we've had front-page hit pieces at the New York Times going after our donors they cannot abide us they don't believe that we have a right to do what we do we believe that we're doing the journalism itself and they've become a system supported propaganda function that needs to control the narrative and a lot of it's economics not just politics but there's a need there's a hunger for independent citizen journalism yeah I agree well actually have your book American Pravda right in front of me I haven't read it yet but I'm looking forward to could you tell us about that yeah I mean the book American property is all about you know George Orwell wrote in 1984 which is the year I was born Orwell says that you know the party the system the establishment I guess you could call the deep state these days the media they don't want you to trust the evidence of your eyes and ears project Veritas this whole vision is to empower of free people by giving them raw unfiltered information I mean images have a power to transfixed images video as a power to change minds I think the Twitter investigation I mean it's amazing thing to watch if you haven't seen these videos on Twitter they're on tape talking about how they target people because they don't like them and I think in society there's a right now there's a fight there's an existential fight about who and who is not a journalist and a lot of these people like two people the Washington Post they resentment and they resent my team because they don't want other people out there fighting exposing things an American Pravda is about on going undercover into the Clinton campaign our story's being spiked by the mainstream media being detained the border it's sort of an adventure story of rollicking adventure story on one level also a treatise on modern media which I don't think that we live in a world where a lot of people don't want to hear the truth but we cannot afford to live by lies as Alexander Solzhenitsyn would say so the book that's really about about modern mass media and how to circumvent the media our synergies with the Trump administration be meeting Donald Trump and just about about about citizen journalism and the need to do the sort of clock breaking yeah well I'm sure all these big media companies don't like you very much what would you say is the biggest problem facing America today well I would say it's fear I would say that most Americans are afraid they're deeply deeply afraid of putting their reputations on the line but in order for us to make progress I think we the people the citizens of this country have to establish new counterweights because I don't think the legislative executive or judicial branch are gonna solve our problems we have to inform the people our government exists with the consent of the government consent must be informed not manufactured so I think people need to go out of a limb and take risks and make sacrifices and I see the fear manifest so much people are unwilling to you know they've got mortgages I've got kids they've got families they got futures they want to law school they will come after us if we expose them they will they've come after me and and one of my brave journalist Alison Moss she was in federal court yesterday with Bob Kramer Bob democracy partners who's suing her because she exposed the fact that he was inciting violence at Trump rallies so a necessary byproduct of success is to be targeted this is to be hate it is to be attacked and I don't think we should view that as as a bad thing I think we need to get used to that and I think that's one of the biggest things that I try to talk about in this book American Pravda is is do we have the willpower do we have the convictions do we believe in our principle stuff to actually stand and fight for them I don't know if we do I worry that we're becoming a nation of feckless cowards and I think that everyone has a role of play it doesn't mean you have to go under cover but but everyone has a role to play well that's amazing what you guys are doing how can people in our audience find out more about Project Veritas well I think by the book on Amazon or Barnes a novel American Pravda our website at his project Veritas that's a V er I TAS and buy the book read the book and put pressure on Jack Dorsey the CEO of Twitter as well tweeted him these videos yeah definitely well James I'd like to thank you for coming on and with us it's a great interview and appreciate and look forward to seeing you soon thank you so much this is well wet and James O'Keefe with Prager you thank you all right guys thank you